


Predators Make Lousy Prey

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Anger, Anxiety, BAMF Ahsoka Tano, Episode: s03e21 Padawan Lost, Insomnia, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Predator/Prey, Protective Ahsoka Tano, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Revenge, Seduction to the Dark Side, Togruta Culture & Traditions (Star Wars), Togrutas (Star Wars), Violent Thoughts, almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27970541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: After being returned to the temple by the Wookie's, Ahsoka still feels hunted, but not only that: she is furious.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 2
Kudos: 100





	Predators Make Lousy Prey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeedsofHope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeedsofHope/gifts).



> someone made a comment about togruta and tradoshans having a similar history about being predators and my mind made this
> 
> also i need more fics of ahsoka being upset and maybe even depressed because I'm doing my clone wars rewatch and legit someone belittles her like nearly every episode. I get thats supposed to be like she overcomes this, but like come on that has to hurt a bit

The togruta curls in on herself on the transport home. Her head lolling on Chewbacca’s arm, his shoulder taller than her even while sitting. Dirt sticks to her skin in a way she is helpless not to be aware of. It flakes and every time she tries to wipe some of the specks away they bury under her nails, taunting her.

There is a lot on her mind, loaded questions and revelations that add another line to her character. Dawning truths tapping on her temples, staining her with conflicting bouts of self that are more significant and complex than her own facial markings. 

It’s the two simplest thoughts, basic thoughts, she let’s come to the forefront as fatigue threatens to send her toppling to the ground.

She wants to shower, not a sonic one even though it’d likely be faster. But her hands need to do something, and scrubbing the blood and grime away from her skin is as symbolic and reassuring as she is orange.

Secondly, her throat hurts. Not enough to decommission her, or even send her to the healers, but it hurts and as long as it does she will continue to feel the Trandoshan’s webbed mitt’s around her throat. His large hands fanning out her lekku into a halo as she gasps for breath, wondering if this is the end, so close to rescue?

The pilot in their slightly damaged ship lands, and immediately the two former younglings are running out. And Chewie is moving slowly and tentatively to stand. Following the wookies lead, the girl blinks away her tired eyes.

Her master is coming, she can feel his frantic and worried signature as she says goodbye to her new friend, giving the wookie her best smile before she turns to him. They don’t quite hug, they can’t in front of the other jedi masters, but the grip he places on her shoulders is a close thing.

To a hug, and a painful reminder that he was just as big as the Trandoshan that’d wrung her neck. Ahsoka know’s her master wouldn’t harm her, wouldn’t steal the breath out of her. (Certainly not in the way he does others) But there is fear that she is forced to quell before she can assure him, she did survive, and that was because of him.

* * *

As much as she wants to sleep she can’t. There is quite the conundrum keeping her awake. She still feels as if she’s being hunted, more so than she even had on Wasskah. She’d slept then, but she couldn’t sleep now.

It took longer than it should have for her to put together what was keeping her awake was anger. Not at herself for being weak, she hadn’t been, but anger _ at them _ . The dark side crooned in her lekku and montrals, and her shields were clamped down before anything or anyone could feel it. Not even her master.

They had stolen her, stolen others! Children and teens. Hunted them for sport. Killed her friend Kalifa. They’d worried her master, bested the Jedi, and worst of all, at least to her, had been foolish enough to try hunting  _ her. _

She’d stopped Kalifa from killing, claiming that it wasn’t the Jedi way, but now she wishes she’d let her. The togruta wants to tear them apart, wishes she could have made them suffer more than what their quick deaths had provided them

Both their species Togruta and Trandoshan had evolved, they’d become the monster’s they used to hunt. They’d elevated themselves into predators, but Ahsoka was glad to admit her kind hadn’t evolved with the help of fancy gadgets that the Trandoshan's hid behind. They’d become fierce, and they’d stolen her from her master not realizing she had the teeth and skill to rip them apart.

How dare they even for a second believe they had the upper hand? That they were the apex predator, because if it was anyone, it was her! She’d survived, she’d won their game. They’d been too afraid to bring in fully formed Jedi, but they should have been afraid of trying to trap another predator like her.

The togruta tossed in her bed, snarling into her blanket, furious. The galaxy itself was in the balance, and these reptilian monsters were looking for mounts for their walls, hunting for sport.

It sickened her. As if the jedi didn’t already have enough to worry about. Now these kriffin nerfherder’s were spoiling potential knights for sport. A tearing sound pulls her from her anger and reverie, her sharp teeth having slipped through her blanket pulling it apart causing her to groan.

* * *

In the end she doesn’t have a choice, she has to tell her master about her anxiety. She can’t walk on the battlefield or even throughout the Resolute or temple without feeling eyes on her skin.

There is no way for her to relax because the snuffing of nostrils and the complex chittering wails of the Trandoshan’s plague her mind. He frowns at her soft confession, guilt still eating him up inside, and Ahsoka doesn’t know if what she says next pushes the bounds. And to any other Jedi she knows it would, but with Anakin she isn’t so sure.

“I don’t feel like a peacekeeper anymore,”

His arms tether her to his chest, and his shields are high. It doesn’t stop the biblical wave of reassurance he rushes her with, drowning her with promises of protection while on the inside he’s falling deeper into the depths.

He’s heard it from the holo, from the people they save, and now from his very own padawan. As much as he’s fought it off, he knows, and is forced to admit. If they were peacekeeper’s once they aren’t anymore.

If the Jedi were once something to admire, there was now a right to question that. Anakin could feel the tendrils of hate in his padawan, and the fear she herself had hoped to inflict, and he smothered it down and out. Took it within his own hatred, growing the ball of agony in his gullet, and digging deep to find the goodness in her to bring back to the surface.

They need this war to end, for their sanities, and maybe just so they could breathe again. But they both know, and they both worry, can they survive a life without conflict? Would they even live to see the end? And the newest, and potentially worst concern of all: would the light stay with them until then?

If only Ahsoka knew then, her master wouldn’t let her fall. Even if it meant he did.

* * *

In an act of surprising initiative, Ahsoka walks herself to the mind healers. They quiet the summoning screams of the Trandoshan calling for backup, and they shame her agony with their favorite request.

“Patience little one.”

And what Ahsoka finds most frustrating is the insistence that request demands. That in an un-given amount of time she will be a Jedi Knight. Coupled with the fact they aim to mold her into a future they cannot even see. One she had been forcibly entrusted to fight for with the painful reminder it may very likely be what she’ll die for. It is a noble cause, an irrefutable fact. (At least it had been once) But she can’t willingly bless them with patience when their time is running out.

* * *

Her biology, her experience, and wisdom back her predation. They assist her assaults. With age and a shift in colors, green, blue, white, her ferocity is unmatched. A system still hunts her. 

Someone she once loved, her brother, hunts her now, more artillery, more bodies she is forced to watch fall and bury. But even still, she does not lie docile in traps laid, she does not let any hunter hang her montrals up on the wall, and she reminds them.

Each and every person who crosses her path, even the ones on her side, predators make lousy prey. And she is not to be mistaken for anything less.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
